Second Daughter by Mildred Pitts; Walter Read Free Book Online Page B

miles until they came to a building, right on the seashore, made of rocks and stones. The men were crowded into small rooms with chains and shackles on their legs and feet. Women and children were put in a courtyard near the ship’s captain and his men. It was hot and dark, for there were no windows and no light from the sun. They were fed two times a day and not allowed to move about until night.
    â€œThose who talked the same language were separated. They were kept in this place for weeks, and more captives were crowded in with them. One day three hundred and thirty-nine of them were lined up and washed down and sprinkled with lime dust. Then a small door opened onto the sea. The light from the sun blinded Baaba and for a long time he could not see what was happening. When his sight returned he saw the ship, Friendship Brig .
    â€œFirst the men were put on board, then the women and children. When Baaba finally passed through the small door down into the ship, he had no idea it was the ‘door of no return.’ Never again would he hear the sounds of the night that he so loved: the animals calling their mates, the drums with their messages of war and peace, dancing feet and songs.
    â€œFor days, too many to count, they were shackled deep in the hold of the ship. In the darkness people around him groaned their misery in a language that he could not understand. The groans and stench made him sick. But the sickness, as bad as it was, did not compare to his fear and loneliness.
    â€œHe recalled all the stories, all the myths that might give him some hint of this horrible fate. There were no gods to appease, no magic to summon to end this suffering. Was he doomed to die like those around him, two or three in the night, far from home, out of the memory of ancestors, family, and friends, his spirit not properly released, his bones to lie in a liquid grave at sea?”
    â€œStop! I don’t want to hear it,” I cried.
    â€œYou must. What will you tell your children when they ask about Baaba?”
    â€œI will never tell them that he was a slave.”
    â€œYou will. Just like he told us, again and again. So you listen. Finally, they were on land again. Barbados. Green lush land with palm trees, breadfruit, and golden pear, what we call avocado. But it was not home and the journey was not over. He was separated from those who arrived with him, their numbers having been greatly reduced. Now there were only two hundred and fourteen of them.
    â€œHe was sold to a trader. For days he slept in an open shed where each morning he and others were placed on the block for sale. In the afternoons he lay under the bright sun, his eyes always on the sea eastward, his thoughts of home as he regained his strength eating papaya, oranges, and mangoes, and drinking the cool milk of the coconut. In the light of day he lived wondering what would happen to him in this new land; at night in his dreams he was always back in Africa.
    â€œWhen he was not readily sold, the slave merchant used him to translate the languages of the slaves to determine from where the slaves had come. There in Barbados he saw many Africans, but only a few who spoke his language. And when he heard his language, his heart leaped in his chest, but afraid that he would never hear it again, he stayed a distance from the one who spoke it until they could disguise their kinship.
    â€œHe grew into young manhood. Not very tall, he had smooth black skin like polished ebony and his hair was tightly curled to his head. When Cornelis Hogeboom purchased him, he also bought ten other slaves. Our mother was one of those ten.”
    â€œFatou, tell me now. What was she like?” I pleaded.
    â€œBaaba says when he first saw her, he knew she was different from other women. Beautiful, bold and shy at the same time. She was tall, the color of chocolate, and she wore her long hair in one large braid with a thin strip of cloth tied at the end. When he asked